Red State’s Erick Erickson calls it “the stupidest headline and premise of a story ever.” Hot Air’s Ed Morrissey describes “pretty much every word” of the article itself as “nonsense.” While I agree completely with them both, what I also see in the Reuters headline, premise, and story about Pope Francis describing abortion as “horrific,” is another example of a yearning the secular leftist media has to feel accepted by the Pope and the Church:

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) – Pope Francis, whom conservatives in the Roman Catholic Church have accused of not speaking out forcefully enough against abortion, on Monday called the practice “horrific”.

The pope made his toughest remarks to date on abortion in his yearly address to diplomats accredited to the Vatican, a speech known as his “State of the World” address.

“It is horrific even to think that there are children, victims of abortion, who will never see the light of day,” he said in a section of the speech about the rights of children around the world.

Since his election in March, the pope, while showing no signs of changing the Church’s position against abortion, has not spoken out against it as sternly or as repeatedly as his predecessors Pope Benedict XVI and the late John Paul II.

Both of those popes often delivered sermons against abortion, which the Church considers murder.

While there is no question that Pope Francis communicates differently than his predecessor Benedict, and has a different personal style, the premise of this particular Reuters piece, and much of the overall coverage around Francis, reveals more about the mainstream media than the Pope.

Whether it is Francis’s comments on gays, capitalism, or abortion, the media seem desperate to shape and mold Francis into someone who is accepting of their own values or lack thereof. And yet, on every single one of these issues — gay marriage, abortion, poverty — there is no policy difference between Francis and those who came before. The Church and its beliefs are the same as they always have been.

In its abortion piece, though, Reuters just doesn’t seem to want to accept that Francis truly does see abortion as “horrific.” How else to explain why they would try to write Francis’s comment off as a symbolic gesture to appease the political right. Reuters has no evidence or reporting to back up its premise, and so it comes off as wishful thinking.

Sure, part of it is political. But that can’t explain how much the media like this Pope or why they work so hard to angle most everything he says in a way that lets them like him.